Sarah Martik
Sarah joined the CCJ team as a Community Organizer in 2017 after previous work in performing arts and foreign language education, and became our Executive Director in 2023. A resident of Coal Center, PA, she is excited to work on issues related to legacy coal mining and the connection between the Appalachian petrochemical buildout and increases in fracking in southwestern PA communities like hers. She has a Master’s Degree in Public Administration and Policy but often says that her undergraduate degree in Theatre from the California University of Pennsylvania has been more useful in her work than anything else (ask her why sometimes!). When she is not working, Sarah loves spending time with her fiancé, niece, and nephews, and going on walks with her "fur kid" Lucy.
Contact Sarah at smartik@centerforcoalfieldjustice.org.
Blog Posts by Sarah Martik
Quality, hometown healthcare and jobs are essential to everyone in our community. That’s why we are concerned about UPMC’s plan to acquire Washington Health System: we have seen how UPMC has treated other communities like ours. Over the last 15 years, UPMC acquired then closed rural hospitals in Braddock, Sunbury, Lock Haven, and Lancaster, and […]
Oil and gas prices are hitting families across the globe exceptionally hard in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Narratives around who’s to blame and what could/should/would be happening to lower prices are spreading rampantly across media of all forms. In the narrative painted by industry, there are some significant missing pieces to the […]
A report was recently released by Beyond Plastics, a non-profit organization based out of Bennington College in Vermont that seeks to end plastic pollution. This 21-page report does a wonderful job of explaining the comparisons in climate-changing emissions from the coal industry and the plastic industry. Plastics manufacturing currently emits the CO2 equivalent of 57 […]
We had a wonderful time at our 15th annual DRYerson festival! It is hard to believe it has been 16 years since we lost Duke Lake, but we are heartened to still gather as a community at Ryerson and celebrate what we have and have fought so hard to protect. On Saturday, June 26th we […]
Our organization looks a little different these days: of course, we’ve grown the size of our staff to be better prepared to address the challenges we face in Greene and Washington Counties head-on; but, we’ve also expanded the reach of our work to explicitly include not only environmental justice but also economic justice and how […]